


Reborn in Fire

by Zykal



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6212023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zykal/pseuds/Zykal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sole puts their spouse to rest</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reborn in Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to write how my Sole handled moving on from their pre-war spouse, since its not something exactly covered in the game.

Lietri had never been the housewife type. She had left that pod and exited into what felt like an entirely new world, only faint, weak ties linking it to its former self. It had felt unreal. And she had no trouble jumping into the violence. There was no hesitation, no remose for any that she had killed, seeing as how she never took the first swing.

Lietri had admitted from the start that this violence fit her, that she was loving it. But it had been treated as a joke, and she supposed she understood. Out of a vault steps this ancient popsicle, they probably found some record of what life was like before... before all this. A woman would never have been expected to be this violent. If any of them expected that about women from her time, they'd never met the women she knew. She only had faint ties to most of them, seeing as how she tended to keep to herself out of habit, but they all had firey passions, and they all were more than suited to war.

Rummaging through ruins of places she may have passed on occasion brought back no significant memories, and she felt like a completely new person. Whoever she had been in her time, on her planet, was gone, long gone, and those memories were faded and untouched. They didn't matter, not anymore. The world had been born anew in flame, and anything she had known had little relevance now.

Sometimes she even forgot about her son.

The tears they saw, the pain they heard when her new companions asked about him, when they asked if she was ok... those were mostly for the fact that she had forgotten him. Her precious baby, and she forgot him.

It was forgetting, it was the sudden reminders that Lietri still had ties to who she had been, that she hadn't really changed much, just adapted to her environment that led her back to Sanctuary. She hadn't stayed here long. Passed through, set up Preston, and then she was out of there, setting up a more defensible camp elsewhere, away from the memories. She had seen Codsworth, and if she hadn't picked him back up right away she wouldn't be able to face him again. He had changed with her, adapted to this world, and kept her new place picked up. Seeing the home she had lived in with her baby, with Voldare was bad enough, but seeing it in ruins made the ache that much worse. One of the few strong ties of the old world to the new one. She wanted it severed, but couldn't bring herself to. The minutemen had no reason to, either-- it was one of the houses still mostly intact.

Lietri stood outside it, looking into the living room through the empty doorframe. She couldn't bring herself to go inside. She didn't really want to know what they'd done with it now. It wasn't her home anymore. They had moved out, and someone else had moved in.

She took a deep breath and turned her attention north, up the road that led to the vault, and forced herself to move. Her feet felt heavy, and her mind was flooded with memories. Nights that she couldn't sleep and Voldare caught her heading out, so they took quiet walks. Days where he was off and they walked hand in hand down the street for some fresh air. Weekends of working in the garden by his side. She did the digging, he picked out what they were to plant and planted them all. And the last one. Running up this road, panicked, worried more for Shaun, for Voldare, than she had been for herself.

She turned off the road to follow the path up, and more memories flooded her. Voldare and Lietri had been on those weird dating terms, unsure if their ideals, their ideas of relationships would line up and testing the waters between them. It was Lietri who grew tired of the game first, and they had been out on this hill together when it was still green, it had been the beginning of fall and only a few trees had started changing colors and Voldare had been so nervous. His hand in hers was so clammy and he couldn't even meet her gaze, despite his skin tone she could see just how red he was and she had lost it. She remembered ripping her hand from his and the way he immediately went to apologize, his stance shrinking and damn him, despite it all he was still so much taller and she had tackled him. Lietri heard the air leave his lungs, heard the dull thud as his head hit the grass last. She knew he'd be bruised. It'd make him remember this.

There had been silence, as she sat straddling his stomach to get her face positioned above his, her hands pinning his shoulders down. Her face told nothing, she probably seemed angry. Voldare didn't try to struggle against her. She raised an eyebrow at him and he stayed silent, still looking guilty, searching her face for answers. And then she had been kissing him, one hand moving to tangle in his hair, the other moving to his jaw, thumb on his cheek, and her elbows resting on his shoulders to keep him there.

There had been no hesitations then, and she could still remember the way they had melted into one another, the way he moved to hold her lightly, never once taking the lead. The way she pulled away because she couldn't hold her laughter back anymore. She'd _tackled_ this poor unsuspecting fellow and he had been completely ok with it. Yeah, they'd be together forever.

That dug a knife into Lietri's gut, twisting, bringing her back to the present. She suddenly became aware of the tears on her face. She didn't bother wiping them away. There would be more soon.

Lietri was at the gate to the vault area. She gave a quick scan of the area between the control room and the vault door and saw nothing that needed attention. She tapped the button and dashed to the descending door, hopping down onto it. The descent was slow, painfully slow. She had thought that the last time she descended too, but then, her gaze had been fixed on Voldare and Shaun through what was returning over her vision after that flash. Her vision was impaired now, too. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to clear her vision.

The elevator ground to a halt, and the gate started raising, slowly, and then it struggled a bit. She grunted and ducked under it. She followed the painted arrows again, only she didn't have to stop to put the suit on-- she was still wearing it. Vault 111. Where she had slept while the world burned above her.

The path seemed much shorter now. Lietri kept her head down as she headed down their row of pods. The faces of neighbors was not something she wanted to see again, not now. She reached the end of the row of pods, the one on the left-- hers-- still open. She turned toward the one on her right and clenched her fists, tightening her jaw to prepare herself. She lifted her gaze to the window.

Voldare didn't stare back. She had sat him back up, closed his eyes. When she had left this vault she hadn't the strength to carry him out, to give him a proper burial. No matter how much she prepared, nothing would help her against this. She tried her best to hold back, but choked sobs escaped her anyways. Lietri brought her fist down on the button and Voldare's pod opened, almost as smoothly as if two hundred something years hadn't passed.

Lietri traced his jaw and felt more sobs burn her chest, trying to get out. She slipped one arm behind his upper back, the other at the bend in his knees and she lifted him out of the pod. The limpness in his body was another knife in her, now in her chest. She took a step back from the pod and ended up falling, thudding hard onto the concrete floor of the vault. She didn't register that, the burning pain in her chest was all-consuming. Every sound, every sob, echoed back, her sorrow filling the room, filling the vault, and it seemed that the entire vault cried with her.

Time down here was always nonexistent to her. Not only had she been frozen for two hundred years but the lights never changed. There was no change in temperature to indicate night or day, nothing to say just how long she sobbed over her husband's corpse. It didn't feel like long enough, and it felt too long. The pain in her hips from the fall was present, but dulled from the cold concrete she'd been sitting on for so long. It was a process, but she hefted herself up, husband in her arms.

She made her way back out, taking her time now. Voldare's weight didn't slow her much, but the pain worsened with each step. She didn't think she'd get too very far, but she didn't need to. Sometime while she had been sobbing, the gate had fully raised and stayed there. She wasn't sure if that was intended or not, but it didn't matter now. She tapped the button on the outside of the gate, quickly stepping onto the door as she heard it whirr to life under her feet.

Lietri headed away from the vault, carrying Voldare's corpse down the slope toward sanctuary, her pace slow and even. She wouldn't bury him where he died. The vault may have kept her alive, but it had killed everyone else it promised to protect. She didn't follow the road the way she came-- she turned the other way, following it to the exit of their small town. Just after the houses died away, but still within the town's limits, there was a good expanse of the sorry excuse for grass that existed now, and she moved to the center of it, crouching down and gently placing Voldare down.

She had nothing to help, so she used her hands to dig. No shallow graves, a full six feet down. A proper burial. The minutemen noticed her hauling the corpse down and had given her strange looks, but said nothing. Mama Murphy had soothed those that seemed concerned about Lietri's sanity. It was for the best. Anyone approaching Voldare's corpse would be killed before questioned.

The ache in hips grew worse and worse and she ignored it, digging further and further. Passing five feet made the task harder, tossing dirt up to get it out was more effort. Her back ached and her legs had started to burn from the crouching, not to mention the sharp pains in her arms, but she pushed all that aside. 

Lietri reached a depth that seemed to be about six feet, and she started to crawl out of the hole. She kicked each foot into the side of the hole to help her out. Her hair was filled with dirt, she could feel it, and her face was probably muddied up. Her armor and vault suit were filled with dirt and it rolled uncomfortably against her skin.

Lietri laid down next to the grave, feet still hanging inside of it, letting her breath calm and her aches settle from stabbing to burning. She got onto her knees, grimacing at the pain that erupted from her hips, and stood. She moved to Voldare's side, away from the grave, and sat down again, pain screaming at her to stop. She lifted Voldare onto her lap and scooted with his corpse on top of her to the edge of the grave. Lietri took a deep breath and pushed herself over. The landing was less than ideal, her legs buckling under her and her face bashing into the opposite wall of the grave, forcing her head to the left and the dirt and rocks and rubble scraping down the right side.

Voldare's body had landed on top of her, and when Lietri looked at him the awkard angle cut again. No tears fell this time, however. She slid him off of her legs, forcing herself to stand hunched over him while she adjusted his posture into something more peaceful. She gave a sad smile at him.

"May your soul rest for eternity," Lietri whispered and climbed back out of the grave.

Filling the grave was much easier than digging it, but the pain was much harder to ignore. She scavenged around, finding a couple of old boards from one of the houses that used to stand, putting three parallel with two supporting on the backside, a shoddy gravestone if there ever was one. She found nails and bound them all together-- hammers were in no short supply-- and sat it at the head of Voldare's grave. There was nothing written on it, but she would correct that later. Maybe find a nice rock to sit at the head instead of a few old, broken pieces of wood.

Lietri stared at the grave only a few moments more. She had made her peace, and while she knew the hurt would never go away, she could live with herself if she knew she had, at least, put his soul to rest.

Voldare may have been the one enlisted, but Lietri would have made a much better soldier. They both had known that.


End file.
